But one thing that turns me off is that the free version will not have further development (only bugfixes and core updates). I know that coders/developers need to eat too, but I don't think that a crippleware model is a particularly good way to go.

Having said that, as it is legitimately Open Source amd certainly no worse than other (IMO) software that has (or will probably) make it into the TKL library. So if it's as good as it sounds (and I must admit I'm interested in having a look) then it may well be worth creating a patch of it. If you want to push forward development of this as an appliance then I would suggest you look into creating a TKLPatch (I'm guessing that's what you';re asking for help with?)

From my experience with web apps such as this (although without actually checking the installer out - ie guessing) the install occurs in 2 stages; an initial 'install' (which is generally a download that is placed in the /var/www folder), followed by a secondary 'install' from within the web browser.

The first part is really easy to script (and thus put into a patch), but the 2nd part can be pretty tricky. It may not be the same but you may find some interest/ideas by reading through my first endevours of creating a patch (TKLPatch for KnowledgeTree).

qdPM has a feature to add extra fields to any entity so if what is there is not enough, you can basically add CMS capability at project, task, ticket, discussion level by adding a text field such a text field with WYSIWYG editor.

qdPM Extended as many more features including a wiki at site and project level.

Also I'd like to revise some of what i wrote above. I'm not sure if things have changed since I last looked at it, but it seems that I need to swallow some of my previous words...

It seems that the qdPM devs changed their mind and ported some of the qdPM-Extended features to qdPM after all. And also, on second look I notice that the 'Extended' (ie pay for) version is also open source so perhaps I souldn't have been so quick to cast doubt on the devs. :)